Update: Several major school districts, including DISD, cancel Monday classes due to icy conditions

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Matthew Busch/Staff Photographer

Luis Guel, 12, (left) and his brother Nicholas Diaz, 15, took pictures of the steam and icy rain at White Rock Lake on Sunday. Saturday's spring-like temperatures were long gone by early Sunday, and a low of 16 degrees is expected by Sunday night.

Update at 2:20 p.m. by Liz Farmer: The bulk of the bad weather should clear Dallas County between 6 and 7 p.m., said Dennis Cain, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.

Most precipitation is light with the heaviest appearing to the North and East of Dallas.

Scattered thunderstorms are causing the bulk of problems by dropping sleet onto areas all at once so there’s not time for it to melt, Cain said.

Temperatures are expected to drop into the teens tonight, which will make it easier for patches of ice to form around Dallas into the morning.

Update at 12:41 p.m., by Liz Farmer: DFW Airport announced that 270 departures have been cancelled today due to freezing drizzle and sleet with temperatures in the upper 20s.

The cancellations are about 29 percent of today’s flight schedule and the airport advises customers to contact their airline or check dfwairport.com/flights.The airport will continue to monitor conditions and has treated runways and roadways throughout the day.

Update at 11:32 a.m.: With thundersleet having been reported in Denton County, and frozen precipitation beginning to fall throughout much of North Texas, the National Weather Service has just issued Winter Weather Warning for most of North Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth. It will expire at 9 p.m.

Mark Fox, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, says the warning is in effect from an area stretching from Gainesville to Dallas-Fort Worth to Ellis and Johnson counties to Paris.

We will see “more of the same” — freezing drizzle, with some sleet — until around 3 p.m., when the upper-level system passes through bringing the area a better shot of sleet.

Original item posted at 9:03 a.m.:

It’s March 2, a day after temperatures climbed into the 80s, and Dallas is yet again under Ice Force Level 1.

Temperatures are already below freezing across North Texas: Dallas Love Field’s at 31 with freezing drizzle; Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is reporting 32 with some rain; Fort Worth Meacham’s at 29 with clouds. And this is as good as it’s going to get today.

“If you have something to do, do it this morning,” says Dennis Cavanaugh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office. “It’s going to get wetter and colder throughout the day. We’re not expecting roads to become impassable; we’re not under a Winter Weather Warning, only an advisory. But it only takes on accident to shut down a road. Travel will get more dangerous. Play it safe.”

Right now there’s just a little precip out there associated with the passage of the cold front, which, Cavanaugh says, is stronger than models originally predicted, which is why we’re now looking at Monday forecasts barely above freezing. That drizzle-mist is from the Gulf moisture that built up in North Texas during two southerly breeze springlike afternoons. The front is wringing it out of the clouds.

But there’s still the upper-level Pacific system well to our west, says Cavanaugh, spinning near the Arizona-New Mexico border.

“Once that gets closer, we’ll get some stronger lift, which is when we could see things like thunderstorms,” says Cavanaugh — or, depending on the temperatures at the time of its arrival, thundersleet. That’s due to arrive between noon and 3 p.m. How long it lingers depends on how fast the system moves once it gets here.

“The ground is still warm, so most of the rain that hits the ground won’t accumulate, but tops of cars and maybe bridges will begin to see ice. And if we’re in the the upper 20s and get thunderstorms, it’s not a big deal. But if its 23, that’s really bad. A lot of that will stick. It depends on the temperatures.” Says Cavanaugh it should be around 27 when the system passes through, but …

“The problem with the front is it’s been colder than expected by the models so far,” he says.

So the Texas Department of Transportation and the city of Dallas are leaving nothing to chance, the say: Collin and Denton counties’ roadways will be pre-treated this morning. Meanwhile, says the city of Dallas, “The Department of Street Services will begin its sanding operations Ice Force Level 1 today at noon to address hazards on the streets due to the forecasted weather conditions. There will be approximately 35 sanding trucks and 100 personnel monitoring bridges, overpasses and inclines throughout the city.”

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